1- ELECTION CANNOT BE CONSIDERED APART FROM WAR POLICIES
An election was announced on 14 May 2023. One possibility is that these elections will be held, and another possibility is that they will not.
In order to cancel the elections, the approach of “we will send two missiles and that’s enough” is always a valid possibility. Nobody should tell us that the AK Party or the Palace Regime or the TR state will not do such a thing. These people, everyone living in these lands, know deeply what kind of a state the TR state actually is. They have sufficient knowledge and experience for this. Those who made us watch the screams of people coming from under the rubble for days in the earthquake area and left people to die, are not honest, do not abide by the rules, etc. moreover, they are not human in the known sense. This is the TR state. The earthquake meant that the people were left to die at the hands of the state. It is extremely suitable for massacre policies. Those who say “we sent the body of your mother who died in the earthquake to Istanbul”, show a man’s body in Istanbul and then say “there was a mistake” and show the severed head of their mother in Hatay, are torturers and those who expect from them, if they are not children, if they are not naïve, if they are not without reason, are cowards or their collaborators.
That is why the annulment of the election by sending “two missiles” is not a remote possibility. Especially in a geography where the clouds of war are so intensified. The Palace Regime is an extension of the US and it is possible that it will take such a step in accordance with its war policies.
If the US has not accepted to withdraw from Idlib, Syria, and the Middle East, the system-person who will best act as a hitman is needed for the US, and therefore the “fate” of the elections is a matter of debate. Idlib is not an ordinary factor for the organization of the Palace Regime.
Yes, in every election, the sovereign, such as the US or NATO, first chooses its own men and then “elects” them to the people. We already know this. But in these elections, the situation is even more critical. Without understanding the war, without seeing the war, it is not possible to understand the election, the election process.
If the US will not withdraw the Turkish state from Syria and Idlib, then it is not possible for it to rule the ISIS forces there with Kılıçdaroğlu. Because ISIS means heroin trafficking, human trafficking at the same time, arms trafficking at the same time, organ trafficking etc. at the same time. ISIS is also inside Turkey. A dirty war at this scale is managed and organized by the US, using the Turkish state as a hitman. It is necessary to understand this process thoroughly. Declaring a state with ISIS gangs, the US has also established a Neo-Nazi administration in Ukraine starting from 2014, that is, after the Syrian war. These two wars are very interconnected. The Palace Regime is also a requirement of war policies, it depends on the US designing the Turkish Republic as a hitman.
The US is trying to maintain its hegemony, prevent its losses, and take its rivals under its control by constantly escalating wars in the world, including the Middle East.
Elections in Turkey are very dependent on this war policy of the US.
Announcing that there will be an election on May 14, 2023, does not abolish the operation of annulment of the election. On the contrary, it is still a possibility to expand the war with “two missiles” and make all opposition accept the cancellation of the election under the name of a “national issue”. It’s also easy to defend; “We wanted to hold an election, but we are at war for our national interests, the election is cancelled.” Here is an election cancellation operation that CHP will also say yes to.
Either the US will withdraw from the Middle East and admit defeat, or it will take its war policies even further. It appears to be the second one. For this reason, there is a high probability that there will be no elections in Turkey, if it does, a very different process is likely to occur, and it is difficult for the US to wage this war with Kılıçdaroğlu at this stage. Let us not be misunderstood, we are not saying that Kılıçdaroğlu cannot enact US orders, of course he would like to. But the EU umbrella and US interests no longer coincide as before.
Without an agreement between the US and the EU, it is not possible for the elections to take place and also it’s not possible the votes cast to the ballot box to be the votes coming out of the ballot box.
We refuse to wait for their masters’ decisions. The people, workers and laborers must decide on their own path to march towards the revolution.
2- WORKERS AND WORKERS AND THE PEOPLE HAVE NO PRESIDENT CANDIDATES IN THESE ELECTIONS
It seems that Erdogan lacks popular support.
It was not there in 2015, he had lost.
He also lost in 2017.
He also lost in 2018.
He knew how to steal every election he lost.
The ingenuity is not in him knowing how to steal, not in his success in stealing, but in the “bourgeois opposition” that sees and demonstrates him as legitimate.
The Palace Regime is therefore never legitimate. Not only because Erdogan does not have a diploma, not only because of Erdogan’s epilepsy; it is also not legitimate because they steal the elections every time.
This means that Erdogan and the Palace Regime do not stand there with the consent of the people.
It is not legitimate.
The liberal left, the bourgeois “opposition”, who accuse the people at every opportunity, actually sees this truth and keeps silent. They aremore afraid of presenting resistance as a legitimate way against the Palace Regime and the state. If they are afraid of the Palace Regime, they are hundreds of more times afraid of revolt, of the possibility of uprising, of putting the truth before the people, of the revolution.
So, the fact that the masses are against Erdoğan is enough for them.
However, large masses are also against the Palace Regime and the TR state.
For this reason, the bourgeois opposition wants to limit the issue only to the opposition of Erdogan. And the left has agreed to that.
The Turkish state, the Palace Regime, is trying to persuade the people, masses, workers and laborers to choose the lesser of two evils.
The lesser one, including Kılıçdaroğlu, are all other candidates.
Kılıçdaroğlu is not an alternative to the Palace Regime.
We did not create the Ekmeleddin case.
We are not the planners of the Muharrem İnce case.
Muharrem İnce actually won the election and sold the won election. And it is known that he received a lot of money in return. Is Kılıçdaroğlu unaware of this process?
We did not create the annulment of the immunity of HDP deputies, the creators of this situation are clear.
While trustees are appointed to Kurdish provinces (the elected mayors were discarded and/or jailed – translator’ note [tn.]), those who forget speeches of democracy and laws are clear.
The people have no candidates in these elections. Unfortunately, that chance has been swept away.
The rightful request for Erdogan’s departure has come to the point of presenting Kılıçdaroğlu to the public as a hope. And the left has agreed to that.
We reject this. The working class and the peoples must not be deceived once again.
Suppose there is an election. Yes, the election was announced on 14 May. Kılıçdaroğlu would certainly win in a normal election. Will there be an election, that is a question; How does it happen, that is also a question. Let’s say it happened, and Kılıçdaroğlu won. Good, but what problem does it solve? For example, the economy, for example, the Kurdish problem, for example, the war policies, for example, the NATO issue, for example, anti-democratic practices? It can’t solve any of them. But it breaks the resistance of the workers against the system and the state to some extent.
The elevation of Kılıçdaroğlu as a hope is to suppress the anger and revolt of the people, workers and laborers, to deceive them once again, and to extinguish their anger against the state. And they seem to have already achieved this without the election.
The bourgeois opposition, the Palace Regime, all the rulers are afraid of the revolutionary uprising of the workers and laborers. Because of these fears, they are putting the Kılıçdaroğlu alternative against Erdoğan and reconnecting the left and the people who read and write to the state through Kılıçdaroğlu. In this way, they are trying to block the revolutionary alternative for workers and laborers.
3- THOSE WHO ARE SERIOUS IN THE ELECTION WOULD NOT HAVE APPROVED ERDOĞAN’S CANDIDACY
Those who assumed that the Palace Regime would go with the election would not have approved of Erdogan’s candidacy. Under which laws was Erdogan nominated? There is a Palace Regime without even electoral laws. This Palace Regime is the extraordinary organization of the Turkish state, the monopolist police state.
Even the electoral laws of the glorious democracy of the TR state, which has entered its 100th year, are not clear. Those who accept Erdogan’s candidacy for the third time are trying to get workers and laborers, the left and the masses behind them in order to strengthen the Palace Regime.
For the rights of the TR state, election, etc., its laws are open to violation, it is almost non-existent, but its laws regarding the slaughter of peoples are extremely clear.
Those who are so convinced that the Palace will comply with the election and the law should have first declared that Erdogan cannot be a candidate. Since the laws are so precious, do not allow Erdogan’s candidacy. Who made Erdogan a candidate?
The story “Let’s not create victims” is a long-standing story. The Palace Regime is a bloody regime. Its economy is an economy of profit, plunder and war. Under these conditions, it has lost its public support. If so, what victimhood is being talked about? Is this how the Palace Regime, with the blood of thousands of people, will become a victim and get the vote of the people? This is completely wrong and it’s a manipulation. So, this is the state of seeing the elections that took place since 2015, each of which Erdogan stole, as “legitimate”. And not only does it see it as “legitimate”, it also shows that it has the support of the people, which is a lie. The people do not approve of the Palace Regime. None of these elections are normal elections in the history of Turkey, let alone according to the bourgeois norms.
Erdogan’s presidency was not legitimate until now, you made it legitimate. Now his candidacy is not legal, but you accepted this, you did not call the people to the streets. Well, if you lose the election or there is no election, what will you say to the people? YSK (official electoral institution) was biased, Erdogan stole the votes etc. Well, we know this today already.
For example, if the YSK announced the results of the elections today, without an election, would Kılıçdaroğlu call all the people to the streets to protest, or would he sing the refrain “We shouldn’t fight, why do people fight, let’s be together”?
Those who do not take to the streets today in the face of Erdoğan’s illegal candidacy and the attitude of the YSK, which has accepted this and violated the law, cannot go out at all tomorrow.
So, we workers, the peoples, no longer see the issue of going out on the streets as dependent on the CHP’s decision. Everyone will make their own way.
To regard Erdogan’s candidacy as legitimate today actually means “yes” to the Palace’s practices.
The attitude of “We will defeat Erdoğan in the elections, at the ballot box” is not a sign of bravery or high will; It is an operation to save the state.
Erdogan cannot be a candidate in the elections. To turn a blind eye to this situation means to underestimate the laws themselves, laws that they expect the Palace to abide by.
Tomorrow, they will say to us that the YSK was biased, they will say “the man won”, they will say “don’t go out on the street, there will be a civil war, we got the information from inside”.
Workers and laborers go to such an election without their own candidates.
Therefore, they have the right not to vote for any presidential candidate.
The electoral process already makes the organization, the elections indisputably dubious.
Suppose, at the last moment, elections become “impracticable”. HUDA PAR makes sense for just such scenarios, as well as the visit of Çakıcı’s men. Anyway, suppose they somehow made the elections impracticable, in which case the “existing president” would continue to be president.
4- THE ELECTION PROCESS IS DUBIOUS
What makes the election process dubious is not just that Erdogan is a candidate when he should not have been. There is this, of course. It is not just changes in electoral law. It is not just the anti-democratic character of the elections.
If Erdogan moves the election date to April 2028 to be a candidate in 2028, will he be considered a candidate again, as he has not completed his term? Of course he will; If it is done today, it will be done that day. In this case, what does it mean to say “a person becomes president by being elected for a maximum of two terms”?
Many practices that make the selection process dubious are being placed on the field. Bans and assassinations are the main methods of this.
The Palace Regime’s regulations on minimum wages and pensions and EYT (retirement age victims – tn.) are not staged for the goal of winning the election. The minimum wage, the EYT law, the manipulation of pensions are actually to prevent a mass uprising, a social explosion.
We can see this in many practices.
Neither the minimum wage nor the EYT is changing the votes in favor of Erdoğan. Not only the bourgeois opposition knows this, but Erdogan and the Palace also know this situation.
Saray knows that when it cooperates with HUDA PAR, it will not have a positive effect on its votes. It is even clear that it will cause a loss of votes. As if HUDA PAR had not joined the alliance, they would have voted for someone other than Erdogan. When Çakıcı’s men visit the gendarmerie commander and expose this, they know perfectly well that it will not win votes.
HUDA PAR describes their entry into the alliance as “election security”. This electoral security is not limited to “threat” and intimidation, as is supposed. The fact that the state itself puts these gangs on the field is also the way for ISIS forces to enter the field. The forces that will be brought into this field have already received a guarantee from the Palace for their every step, the right not to be tried from the Palace, and to be treated as a state official. Otherwise, the actions of these gangs are always known. But the guarantee of non-judgment should be encouraging in this respect. This is how the issue should be viewed.
Otherwise, all these steps will be considered as “vote-losing steps”, which is naive and childish, it is not recognizing the state.
The palace seems to not have a concern with votes.
None, because no move will get them votes.
They say that it’s not the vote cast in the ballot box, but the vote that matters. This is what they call democracy. And this is true in every election in recent years.
So, we have to go out to the street from today. If the illegal acceptance of the presidential candidacy, the dubious election process (which is already the case, and we are still at the beginning of the road) are not enough reasons to take to the streets, will there be a CHP with a will to say “go out on the street” when they steal the election tomorrow? Of course there won’t be.
There is no way for salvation for of people, workers and laborers except their own organizations, revolutionary organizations and revolutionary socialists.
5- THE PALACE IS AFRAID
The palace is afraid.
Every brick and every wall of the palace trembles with fear, just like buildings and walls tremble in an earthquake.
But this fear is not the product of a fear of the six table called opposition. The reason for the fear of the Palace is the Kurdish revolution and the resistance process that started with Gezi.
The palace is afraid of the uprising of the people and that the social explosion will turn into an uprising.
For this reason, the TR state, the Palace Regime, implements a dual policy: In the first leg of this policy, are pressure, violence, lies, etc. It has been continuing this for a long time already. They will add new assassinations etc. to this. On the second leg, there is the control of the left forces that will turn a social explosion into an uprising and a revolutionary uprising. The left’s following CHP is already a win for the Palace Regime. And that’s the hallmark of this selection process, that’s what’s new.
The fear of the people is present in every step of the Palace. The earthquake zone is the most concrete proof of this. Saray has activated all its paramilitary forces in the earthquake area. Driven to the earthquake site, these paramilitary forces are there to prevent a social explosion. In that field, death is no longer a source of fear. The people who lost so many of their relatives were openly confronted with the true face of the state.
This is the source of their fear, that the people no longer have anything to fear.
They have the blood of thousands of people on their hands and they fear it.
They have sown the wind, and the days when they will reap the storm are near, which they fear.
They have built a paradise for themselves and they are afraid of losing this paradise.
Their criminal record is very, very large and they are afraid of it. They are afraid of the people.
6- THE PALACE REGIME WILL BE DEFEATED BY RESISTANCE, NOT ELECTION
With this fear, the Palace Regime launched all kinds of attacks against the people. It is understood that they will develop these attacks with more specific targets. But now, the end of their suppression of the working class and the masses with fear has come to an end. As long as the working class, as long as the revolutionaries do not lose their resistance route.
The Palace Regime was not formed by election.
The Palace Regime will not go by election.
The way to overthrow the Palace Regime is a social uprising. Of course, this must be organized step by step, moment by moment.
Resistance is the only way to come to terms with the Palace Regime. The victory of these resistances passes through organization and the United Labor Front.
Streets are spaces where we can breathe freedom. Organization is freedom.
The streets are the place to write new laws; It is the field of writing new laws that will emerge from the hands of workers and laborers, women and young people, and that will arise from their actions and resistance.
For this reason, we see the path of resistance as the true path of the working class and toilers.
Therefore, we boycott the presidential elections.
In the ballot box, on the presidential ballot, we propose to write down the names of the Gezi resistors; Ali İsmail Korkmaz, Berkin Elvan, Abdullah Cömert, Ethem Sarısülük, Ahmet Atakan, Mehmet Ayvalıtaş, Hasan Ferit Gedik, Medeni Yıldırım.
For the parliamentary elections, we propose to cast votes for HDP candidates. We propose to support the HDP, however it will enter the election. This is the greeting of the working class of our country to the Kurdish resistance.
Young people, your first vote is to Berkin Elvan!
Mothers, your vote is for Ali İsmail Korkmaz!
Workers, laborers, vote for Ethem, Abdullah, and the beautiful children of Gezi.
Workers, laborers, women and youth have to prepare for a more organized and tougher struggle. The more this struggle develops, the more the field of action will develop, and this is the only way to get economic and social rights.
We revolutionary socialists have to tell the truth to the workers, laborers, women and youth. The Palace Regime did not come with elections, it is not legitimate and will not go with elections.
The only way to overthrow the Palace Regime is the resistance of the workers and laborers without taking a step back, with courage. The Palace Regime will be defeated on the street, at the barricade.
This is a government that has already expired. To wait for the elections etc. within their extraordinary system, is to surrender to their will. There is no need to wait. From today, it is imperative to work for a line that expands, consolidates and organizes the resistance.
No matter what vote is cast in the ballot box, the vote that will come out is clear.
We may not know this, but the masters already know.
It is possible to take the fate of the country from the hands of the masters, to write it with our own hands. For this, the issue is a more organized line of resistance. Workers and laborers, women and youth must continue their resistance without interruption. There is no point in leaning too much into election debates. It is a matter of using every opportunity to develop the line of resistance.
The United Labor Front is an urgent requirement.
April 5, 2023
Kaldıraç Movement
